Stories Within Stories (Within Stories)

A young couple is on a road-trip through New England. It’s just coming on to dusk as they approach a small town in rural Maine. In need of gas and food, they turn on to the main road. Their car engine splutters and dies. It’s only then that they notice the street is empty; not a single person is outside.

As they climb out of their car, they hear a door slam, and then the sound of fading laughter.

The couple look at each other, and one says, “This place feels like a Stephen King novel.”

What do you think is going to happen next? More importantly, what kind of feeling does that last sentence give you about the story to come.

That, my friends, is intertextuality.

Intertextu-what-ity?

Intertextuality is a term that was first used in 1966 by literary critic Julia Kristeva to describe the literary device wherein one text refers to another, either subtly or overtly. It refers to one book referencing another — either another book, a movie, a fairy tale, or even a well-known social “text”, like Kanye’s “I’mma let you finish” moment.

We, as humans, have been telling each other stories for thousands of years, each one carefully constructed over the bones of past stories. As they say, no story is an island. We approach every story we consume — whether it be a book, movie, TV show, computer game, comic book, or whatever else — with a knowledge of other stories. Often, it’s that knowledge, that recognition of how stories go, that makes reading so enjoyable.

No, really, intertextu-what-ity?

Generally, you know intertextuality when you see it. In fact, not only do you know it, it gives you a frisson of excitement; a feeling that you’re part of the “in group” that gets the inside joke.

There are so many examples of intertextuality in modern pop culture, it’s hard to know where to start. Watch any episode of The Simpsons and you’ll be sure to find one. For example:

But sometimes they’re a lot more subtle.

A few years ago, I saw a recommendation for Benedict Jacka’s Alex Verus series, with the note that it would appeal to readers who love Jim Butcher’s Dresden Files. Naturally, I picked up the first of Jacka’s books at my earliest convenience.

Early in the book — on page 3 or 4, from memory — as the first-person protagonist was explaining all the reasons that wizards in London keep a low profile, he adds: “I’ve heard of a guy in Chicago who advertises in the phone book under “Wizard”,though that’s probably an urban legend.”

Now, if you’ve read The Dresden Files, you probably got the same gleeful sense of in-joke-ness as I did when I read that sentence the first time. Not only did the intertextual reference make me feel clever and on the same wavelength as the author, it made me immediately predisposed to love the book.

Which brings me to the whole point of this essay.

Conscious intertextuality

Whether you intend on it or not, you will use intertextuality in your stories. It’s just something that happens. We read, we live in the world, we engage with stories every day of our lives. Subconsciously, those experiences shape our writing and make their way on to the page — often so subtly that we barely notice them until they’re pointed out.

But what if we were conscious of the intertextuality we were using?

Because, let me tell you, if you have your protagonist meet an important secondary character named Pandora, readers are going to immediately make an intertextual connection between your character and the character from Greek myth. So, why not use that to your advantage?

And, yes, I know that we already do. If you’re anything like me, you spend more time working out the perfect name for your characters than you did your children. (Did I just say that out loud?)

But it’s not just names. It’s settings and descriptions and people and references to other works of fiction or authors or events. The moment one of your characters stands up and says: “I have a dream,” you are using intertextuality to summon a particular mood and theme — either by reinforcing the mood of the original text, or destabilising our understanding of one or both texts.

Now, before you get all excited about adding as many intertextual references as you can into your work, be warned: you can go overboard.

Weaponised intertextuality

As I’ve said, intertextuality is fun and adds depth to a story. But sometimes it’s possible to go too far. The prime example of this is in the boom of recent Superhero movies.

Back in the good old days of, oh, I don’t know, ten years ago, Superhero movies were relatively rare. There were a couple of X-Men movies, and some Spider-Man movies, and… I don’t honestly remember any others. If you ever had the fortune to see one of those movies in the cinema with a dyed-in-the-wool comic geek (or you are one yourself), you may have been subjected to regular, gushy whispers of indecipherable phrases like: “It’s Phoenix!” Or “Iceman!” Or “Squeee! I know him!”

Intertextuality at its finest. In-jokes for people “in the know”, that faded into the background for those of us who were there to enjoy a stand-alone movie.

But then things got a bit insane.

These days, there are more Superhero movies than I can count, and each of them is so packed to the gills with intertextuality that it’s hard to spot the story through the cameos.

Nerdwriter1 has a great YouTube video about weaponised intertextuality, which you can watch here. My favourite quote from his video is this one:

Those moments are like unicorn blood; they’ll keep your story alive but with only half a soul.

Are you consciously aware of the intertextuality you use in your stories? Have you had any greet squee moments at seeing/reading intertextual references?

Wish you could buy this author a cup of joe?

Jo Eberhardt is a writer of speculative fiction, mother to two adorable boys, and lover of words and stories. She lives in rural Queensland, Australia, and spends her non-writing time worrying that the neighbor's cows will one day succeed in sneaking into her yard and eating everything in her veggie garden.

Comments

I use intertextuality consciously, a lot, because I write mainstream fiction set in the very recent past, and the references are the best way to anchor the story in the real world, in space and in time.

It was instinctive – I have you to thank for the name of the device.

If you pick the right bits, your own story slides into the spaces left in reality – and gives the story the feeling that it really happened.

And if the story happens in the real world as you go along, the author’s conclusion must also be real. Right? So the story achieves its own truth, as real as the world it’s set in. I want my story to be real.

I look carefully for anything that kicks a reader out of the willing suspension of disbelief because I have a difficult premise, one which most people don’t even realize they don’t believe, that disabled people are as important as – the rest of us.

My sister was watching a reboot of Fright Night the other evening and I glanced up at a scene from my desk. It was the scene where the vampire, played by Colin Ferrell, was chasing the protagonist, his mother, and girlfriend (< -- the perfect argument for the Oxford comma) down a dark, desert highway.He'd somehow crawled under their car while it was zooming down the road, punched his way through the floor where the brakes and accelerator were, and slammed on the brakes. Needless to say, everyone inside was spazzing out as the car sat still. Then...BOOM! A crash from the rear. A car out of nowhere slammed right into them. Out of the damaged sedan comes Chris Sarandon, berating them for being parked in the middle of the road with no tail lights (Colin Ferrell had slammed into them earlier with his truck).Well, those of us who were around in 1985 immediately recognized Sarandon as the vampire from the original movie (at least, if you're a movie geek, like me). Intertexuality! I wonder if any millenials picked up on it (unless they've seen the original in syndication or dvd or streaming or whatever). I felt my age finally put me in with the in-crowd. Ha!Wonderful essay. Oh, and did you like my "dark, desert highway" intertext? Yeah, me, too.

That’s one of my favourite types of intertextuality, and often the most effective. You, as a movie geek, immediately got the intertextual reference and felt that fanboy squee of inclusiveness. And yet, for the younger, non-movie geek, or non-visual (hello!) people in the audience, that reference goes completely unnoticed. It doesn’t give the impression of a missed reference; if you don’t get it, it doesn’t give any impression at all.

My sister was watching a reboot of Fright Night the other evening and I glanced up at a scene from my desk. It was the scene where the vampire, played by Colin Ferrell, was chasing the protagonist, his mother, and girlfriend (< -- the perfect argument for the Oxford comma) down a dark, desert highway.He'd somehow crawled under their car while it was zooming down the road, punched his way through the floor where the brakes and accelerator were, and slammed on the brakes. Needless to say, everyone inside was spazzing out as the car sat still. Then...BOOM! A crash from the rear. A car out of nowhere slammed right into them. Out of a damaged sedan comes Chris Sarandon, yelling at them and berating them for being parked in the middle of the road with no tail lights (Colin Ferrell had slammed into them earlier with his truck).Well, those of us who were around in 1985 immediately recognized Sarandon as the vampire from the original movie (at least, if you're a movie geek, like me). Intertextuality! I wonder if any millennials picked up on it (unless they've seen the original in syndication or dvd or streaming or whatever). I felt my age put me in with the in-crowd. Ha!Wonderful essay! Oh, and did you like my "dark, desert highway" intertext? Yeah, me, too.

I definitely use intertextuality in my historical fiction manuscript. A mention that everyone is devouring the new novel Phantom of the Opera, for example, is an effective way to gently remind readers that the story takes place in the early 20th century.

About a hundred pages into my novel I have a blatant reference to Jane Eyre that not only dovetails nicely with that part of the story, but sets the tone for what is about to come. Jane Eyre is such a well known book that many of my readers will not only fully understand the reference but see that there are many parallels between the two tales in the entire first half of my novel.

What’s especially interesting (for me) is that I’m not manipulating the parallels to consciously imitate Charlotte Bronte – my novel is based heavily on a true story.

I love that you’ve referenced Jane Eyre. One of the interesting things about intertextuality is that it can make a reader re-evaluate not only the text they’re reading, but also the original text. If you reference Jane Eyre, using the symbolism and depth of that novel to further your own, it’s possible readers will also gain a greater — or different — understanding of Jane Eyre as well. Pretty cool, huh?

(On a personal level, I had that experience with Jane Eyre. I wasn’t a fan of the book until I read Jasper Fforde’s The Eyre Affair. At which point I developed a greater understanding and appreciation for the original book.)

I sprinkle them in, but often they sound forced on reread. What would you do with a character who references The Island of Dr Moreau, Jurassic Park, and The Heart of Darkness more or less in the same speech? Tell him to give it a rest!

Once I put down a mystery after the main characters spent about a page mooning over Susan Silverman, the girlfriend character in Robert B. Parker’s popular Spenser series. I checked the book’s cover. Sure enough, there was a glowing blurb from Parker himself on the back. It felt weird, like I was reading love notes between the authors.

What would I do with a character who referenced The Island of Dr Moreau, Jurassic Park, and The Heart of Darkness in the same speech? Invite him out for a drink.

Okay, it depends on how it’s done. Good intertextual references should add emotional and thematic depth to the work — and/or provide Easter Egg-like cameos for fans to appreciate — without distracting or detracting from the story. If a character can reference those three works of fiction in a single speech in a way that adds to the story, you’ve immediately sold me on the novel.

Wow— intertextuality— I had no idea there was actually a name for the referencing that goes on within artistic mediums. And boy, oh, do I have it sprawling all over the backstory chapters of my current WIP. My use of intertextuality will need to be more selective once I get to chapter one and write forward. But for now it’s something I need to run with because I think it’s the tool my creative well is using to get me to connect with deeper issues I don’t even know are important at this time.

“But for now it’s something I need to run with because I think it’s the tool my creative well is using to get me to connect with deeper issues I don’t even know are important at this time.”

Yes! Exactly! But it’s not just you who will connect to those deeper issues through intertextuality, it’s your readers, too. Toning them down is probably a good thing, but don’t feel like you need to get rid of them completely.

Intertextuality. Love it. I had no idea the term existed, but a great tool to add to my toolkit.

I wonder about what happens when a reader misses the context. I recently used such a reference as irony, “…And I was born in Kenya.” (Spoken by the president.) A BETA reader came back and told me the president MUST be born in the US. So, assuming someone reading your opening paragraph had no idea who or what the reference to Stephen King meant, they could rely on the deserted street and then infer the reference should be scary. (And, hopefully, be curious enough to look up Mr. King.) My concern is at what point does using intertextuality pull someone out of the story rather than simply missing out on the context?

That’s a really good question, Deb. Thanks for asking it. And your example is spot-on.

Intertextuality works when it doesn’t distract or detract from the overall story. If it pulls a reader out of the story, or makes them question what’s going on, then the intertextuality isn’t working.

The example I used about driving into a Stephen King novel works whether or not you’ve ever heard of him. If you have, you immediately feel that sense of dread that all is not as it seems. But if you haven’t, you can infer that he writes creepy stories based on the description.

It wouldn’t work if I’d skipped the description, and just said that they drove into a perfectly ordinary town in Maine and then one of the couple made that comment. Or, rather, it would work as shorthand for people who know Mr King’s work, but it would be confusing as hell for people who don’t.

Personally, I LOVE your “born in Kenya” comment. It’s obviously sarcasm, and summons up all the ridiculousness of the birther movement, making me roll my eyes and laugh. But for those people who aren’t part of the “in group” who immediately get the reference, it’s a stopping point in the story. So, regardless of how good it is, it doesn’t work.

But that doesn’t mean you have to lose it — just that you may need to rewrite it. Perhaps have the president roll his eyes as he says it, or rephrase to something like: “Next you’ll say I was born in Kenya.” What you want is to still summon up the feelings of those “in the know”, but without confusing those who aren’t.

Yep, I use it too. I didn’t know it was called intertexuality, but I always liked seeing some other work referenced in a story. In the very first draft to my WIP, it was an ode to films and certain books. I referenced a lot. Admittedly, I went overboard.

Jo– “Intertextuality” sounds like a three-dollar lit-crit term for literary or cultural allusion. Is there any difference between the pop-culture references you use and, say, the title of Faulkner’s novel The Sound and the Fury (Shakespeare’s Macbeth), or Hemingway’s A Farewell to Arms (George Peel’s poem)? I’m not trying to complicate things, but I would like to know in what way the term you discuss is any different from the one long in use.

In many ways, you’re right. As I mentioned, the term ‘intertextuality’ was only invented in 1966. By a literary critic, no less. But intertextuality is a staple of fiction for thousands of years — it didn’t suddenly start existing fifty years ago. So, yes, it IS a three-dollar literary critic word.

But then, I would have to say that “literary or cultural allusion” isn’t exactly a fifty cent word, either.

Is there a difference between intertextuality and allusion? Yes and no.

Allusion is one of the ways intertextuality manifests itself. (Others include parody, pastiche, direct quotes, and specifics such as setting, clothing, and (in films) actors.) In that respect, the examples of allusion you gave are also examples of intertextuality.

Allusions help simplify complex emotional and thematic situations by making a passing reference to another text which embodies that emotion or theme. Allusions are also generally considered to be references to classical literature or poetry, rather than the Kardashians.

The purpose of intertextuality is to create a relationship between the two texts, either to invite comparison, create a dialogue, or change our understanding of one or both texts. Good intertextuality may not simply reference the emotional and thematic landscape of the orginal text, it may also bring us to a new understanding of the original.

Jo–thanks for your reply. No, I still don’t see any true distinction between the two terms. By alluding to something/someone/some work in my own writing/film/painting, I do what you’re talking about: I invite the reader to make a connection, to expand the meaning of my work by incorporating the reader’s knowledge of something else. People are forever alluding to Star Wars by saying “May the force be with you.” Almost everyone understands the allusion. But someone who doesn’t know the reference won’t have a clue. This may be why you use pop-culture illustrations: we are living in a post-literary society, and can’t be confident that standard classics are widely known. A hundred+ years ago, most anyone in the western world who could read was familiar with the Bible and Shakespeare. Today, you can take a degree from Harvard without having read anything of either. Films/TV shows/recent successful genre fiction? Allusions to these can be made with more confidence. It’s neither good nor bad, just reality. But it does serve to cut readers off from allusions in a huge body of literature/art that assume awareness of classics, etc.

I guess the most simple explanation is that all allusions are intertextuality, but not all intertextuality is an allusion.

For example, Alec Baldwin’s SNL skits about Trump are intertextuality. Would you classify them as allusions?

Either way, though, if you’d prefer to stick with the term allusion, go right ahead. At the end of the day, both are terms of literary criticism. As writers, it’s more important that we know how to use them effectively than if we use the currently preferred lit-crit terminology.

Interestingly, though, it’s impossible to graduate high school in Australia without reading at least one of Shakespeare’s plays. And, although that may be the Shakespeare may people read, the prevalence of re-makes and intertextual references to the classics on TV and in film mean that you’d be hard pressed to find a single person who doesn’t have a working understanding of some of the bigger titles.

In my manuscript for I Hold the Wind, in which classic literature features heavily, I have many, many purposeful references to characters, scenes, settings, or themes of those works, especially the common theme of women going mad because of others’ rules or expectations. It was SO fun to write, and I’m sure most references will go unnoticed by all but the most faithful of former English majors, but it was so satisfying to lace it all together.

Hi Jo. Great post and yes I too had not heard the term, but was using it. I have referenced my MC feeling like Alice in Wonderland, falling down the rabbit hole into confusion, but the reference did not name ALICE. Maybe now I will.

Whether or not you mention Alice depends on how it plays out. As soon as you use the phrase “down the rabbit hole”, you immediately conjure Alice in Wonderland, so it may not be necessary.

The Matrix did the same thing when it used the phrase “follow the white rabbit”, as did any number of movies and TV shows (including The Simpsons) when someone uses the phrase: “We’re through the looking glass.”

I love intertextuality, and I love seeing it in fiction. I love the vibe of this is my crowd I get when I spot a reference. Specially I love references to books I’ve loved (so now I’m searching for Benedict Jacka ;)). It makes me react in a way other kind of stories don’t. That’s why I know The Book I have inside me, the one I still am not working on (because I don’t feel ready for it), includes a Library and lots of books and lots of references and… but in the meantime I’ve discovered a book that made me enjoy in a gleeful way. The Invisible Library by Genevieve Cogman. You are welcome ;)

First, let me say that the beginning of this post sounds like my everyday life…in my small town in Maine…

Like others, I had no idea there was a name for it, but I love it when I come across these things in books, movies, or TV shows….even love songs that reference Romeo and Juliet! I really like retellings and/or movies and books take a modern twist on a classic — one of my favorites is Easy A. Not that I’m obsessed with Nathaniel Hawthorne (okay, I am) but in one of my novels, there’s a story within a story that turns out to be the seed story for The Scarlet Letter. I also love to name my characters things that tie to the story I’m writing or another bigger story or mythology or history.

Such a great post, Jo — I’m going to check out the Nerdwriter1 youtube videos. And next time you’re in New England, we need to recreate that Stephen King scene together on that rural road in Maine….

p.s. also, am I the only one who noticed that woman in the photo (at the top) actually looks like she’s looking at you? And her body shifts slightly from photo to photo? Creepy ;-)

Just so you know, I was thinking of you when I wrote the opening scene. We should absolutely re-enact it!

I have to admit, I really enjoyed the children’s film Gnomeo and Juliet. Not just because it was a re-telling of the play, but because of a single line towards the end, where the gnomes are talking to a statue of Shakespeare. (Oh! How meta!) I won’t reveal the line because spoilers. But if you haven’t seen it, it’s well worth watching. :)

OMG, Jo, I knew it (about the opening scene)!!! Now we totally need to recreate it in 2018 (if not before by Skype…that would definitely add a creepy layer, haha). Let’s do it!! Maybe it should even be a skit/story about “on the search for Steven King.” Not stalkerish at all. Then we can write about it! :-)

I’ve not seen Gnomeo and Juliet, but I’ll watch and report back. It sounds amazing.